


Of Monsters

by llassah



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:50:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llassah/pseuds/llassah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius always expected to go into the Black family business. Said family business just happens to involve kneecappings, murder, and the most powerful criminals in London. When Sirius decides to leave home at nineteen with a briefcase full of money and a few other essentials, he has no idea that he will end up sharing a dosshouse with a lunatic in a tweed jacket with the reading habits of an Oxford don and staggering intermittent anger issues. Sad thing is, it’s probably the safest place for him right now. Until it isn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Monsters

He leaves at five in the morning, doesn’t look back. He’s got a briefcase full of money in his hand, and the watch his grandfather gave him on his wrist, three false passports and a stash of weapons. His knuckles are healing, slowly. It’s spring, he’s nineteen, and he doesn’t look back.

His grandfather, there’s a man. A tough fucking bastard, polite and well spoken, just the right amount of cuff showing, impeccably neat. A man with class, some of the old lags say, sitting on barstools in smoke filled pubs. They don’t make men like him any more. That’s what they always say, halfway through the third whiskey, cigarettes stubs in their yellowed fingers. They mean, of course, that sharks and killers these days don’t have any style. They murder, blackmail, extort, corrupt and steal, but they don’t wear suits that have been made on Savile Row. They get their hands dirtier: they don’t wear leather gloves.

Through the streets as the world starts to wake up, past milkmen and drunks, tramps and alley cats. He’s been planning this for two years, between barfights and expensive booze stolen from the corner cupboard, studying and idle flirtations, kissing and daisy chains, innocent walks in the park and gasped out fucks on mattresses. Two years since his mother brought home a man with cold cold eyes and a shiny suit, a man who’d told him to call him Tom and shook his hand, clapped him on the shoulder like a politician among the proles. Tom, who…collects people, has side deals and gun shipments, cuts his coke with brickdust.

He walks till his feet ache, following them through the streets and down alleys. Once he gets far enough away, back into his Grandfather’s patch, he walks into the first bar that’s hiring, a tiny dive in Soho. They book him on the spot, before he’s even given his fake name or made up experience. It’s dark, small, the fug of smoke hanging over everything. He has an inkling as to why they hired him. In his suit, he feels out of place, and he has to stop himself from clutching at his briefcase, leans back against the bar with a relaxed smile on his face. It’ll take more than a couple of predatory fucking chickenhawks to scare him. There are a few punters already there, staring into their glasses as smoke wreathes around their heads. He sees some traces of stage make up on a few, the grey of faded knuckle tattoos on one. Actors and old lags, nocturnal or alcoholic.

Most of them probably know about Old Man Black. He could join the family business, step up to his grandfather’s right hand. Lord knows he’s learnt enough about how it works. He’s got his hands dirty a few times, too, but never _too_ dirty. It would be easy, very easy, to fall into that line of work. Instead, he’ll be wiping glasses and cleaning lines, changing barrels and dodging arse grabbers. He’s nineteen, and he’d like to pretend he still has some choices, so he learns bar prices, gets a feel for the geography of the place, entrances and exits.

There’s a mild commotion at the door, as a kid gets the strap of his bag tangled in the handle, then disentangles himself, swearing all the while, stumbles into the bar to mocking applause from some of the more alert drinkers. Sirius looks at him for a few seconds too long, smiles a little too openly because the kid comes over to him, all messy hair and bright eyes, mudstained clothes and fierce intelligence “You new here?” he starts, and Sirius is going to respond, put him off, but the boy barrels on. “I’m off to UCL next term, got lost and found myself round here. How about you? You off to uni? I’m the first one in my family, got in on a Rugby scholarship. I’m a winger though, never would’ve made prop. My da was proud enough he put a notice in the paper. Cat got your tongue?”

Sirius looks at him for a long moment. He could put him off. He’s done it before with overfriendly people. Instead, he finds his eyes sweeping over the boyish curve of his cheek, the infectious grin. He’s made friends before, but on his family’s terms, acceptable friends. He’s run with a bad crowd, but they weren’t…he won them with knife fights, drinking, fucking. His tongue feels too thick for his mouth, palms sweaty, but he sticks it out anyway, grasps it between thumb and forefinger and pulls it out. “Sirius Black,” he says once he’s released it, holds out his hand for the boy to shake without wiping it. It’s damp with sweat and spit. The boy huffs out a laugh, licks his own palm, a broad strip right across it.

“James Potter.”

They shake and everything clicks into place. Sirius grins, giddy, wipes his hand on James’ jacket, dodges the cuff to the back of his head. They sit and ignore the work Sirius is meant to be doing, talk about just about everything, half-finished sentences and arguments started and discarded, shared books and music, films and old teachers. It gets to four in the afternoon and the proprietor of the bar shoos them out with a good natured chuckle. Sirius is oddly relieved that he’s gone from potential prey status to beloved nephew. Sex is a weapon he prefers not to use to get what he wants. He will if necessary; he has before. One of the few lessons his mother actually succeeded in teaching him, even if she didn’t mean to, was that everything is a weapon if you use it right, and every piece of clothing you own should double up as armour.

They meander out into the street, take a few turns that Sirius memorises out of habit, are still talking when James stops suddenly, smacks himself on the forehead. “Fuck! I was meant to be moving today. Out of the old fucking dosshouse, back into student digs. Closer to lectures. Christ, I clean forgot.”

“You’re moving house, and you forgot?”

“Yeah, easily distracted. A mate of mine’s got a mini. Thought I’d get all my shit stowed in there. I’m living with the Prewett brothers- they’re both props, terrifying in a scrum. They’ll be there in—ah. They’re there.”

James stops in the middle of the pavement. There’s the most offensively coloured car stopped outside a dilapidated old house with oddly shaped scrapes down the peeling paint of the front door. Leaning against it are two identical scowling ginger men, both shaped like brick shithouses. James slings an arm round Sirius’s shoulder, and he has the unnerving feeling he’s just being used as a human shield as he is towed towards the twins. “Gideon, Fabian, best loosehead and tighthead props this side of the Severn bridge.”

“You’re late, you shithead. Three quarters of an hour late, and I’m fucked if I’m going up those stairs on my own with Lupin there,” one of them grunts. James sighs.

“He’s not bad. Just…has his days. Anyway, I’m here now, and the next three rounds are on me if you help me carry my stuff down. Promise he’s not there.”

With a smile like that, James could get anyone to do anything, Sirius realises, helplessly drawn. It’s not the knife edge charisma Tom uses; nor is it the soft spoken persuasion his grandfather prefers. It’s all gangly limbs and enthusiasm, the hint of the leader he could become once he’s got a few more years, has grown into himself. He finds himself helping with the implausible number of books James has, the odd boxes full of transistor radios and skin mags. He’s sweating by the time they’re done, and it just seems fitting that he walks with them to the nearest pub to take James up on his offer of a pint.

It turns into three pints, then it turns into moving into James’s old digs. He’s nineteen, and this morning he left home. He’s nineteen, and there’s a knife strapped to his left ankle, and he could buy another gun in half an hour if he wanted to, and he knows how to take a man apart, and how it sounds. Nineteen, with a briefcase full of money, and a grandfather who has half of London sewed up. He sleeps that night on a ratty old sofa, in the house of a complete stranger who may or may not be a deranged lunatic. Oddly, he sleeps rather well.

He meets Lupin two days later, once he’s moved properly in to the house, got some sheets for the mattress on the floor in the empty room, bought some clothes from the local Oxfam, He’s not quite settled in yet, but at least he isn’t getting a crick in his neck every morning. He had nearly forgotten about his absent flatmate. He has the dregs of a cup of tea balanced on his knees as he slumps on the sofa, knackered from a double bar shift full of politely evading wandering hands and wistful eyes. The front door opens partway, a kick getting it over the uneven lump on the floor, and Sirius prepares himself for another one of James’s whirlwind visits. By prepares, he means closing his eyes and waiting for James to run out of steam.

A measured tread up the stairs, a creak on the third and fifth. A pause. Sirius opens his eyes just as he’s grabbed by the throat and slammed up against the wall with terrifying strength and speed by a nutter in a tweed jacket and ripped jeans. He’s…not entirely sure how he feels about this. “You must be Lupin,” he manages with an approximation of a smile. “I’m your new flatmate. I…assume you weren’t told?”

“James,” Lupin huffs without letting go of Sirius’s throat. Three days of knowing him, and Sirius can sympathise.

“In his defence, there was a girl…” he starts, then trails off, distracted by the feeling of Lupin’s thigh between his legs.

“Always is. Tea?” Lupin asks, stepping back, tugging at Sirius’s t-shirt so it sits right. Sirius nods, picks up his cup from the floor and follows him into the kitchen. “You working at Abe’s?” Lupin asks as he fills the kettle.

“Yeah. Second shift tonight. You?”

Lupin shrugs, reaches up to one of the cupboards for two grimy mugs. “This and that. The docks, sometimes. Bit of everything. Heavy lifting, mainly. Some bouncer work, depending on the date.”

He talks like a professor. Soft, a little husky. Every word precise. Sirius taps a mindless rhythm on the table. “You’d be a fucking terrifying bouncer,” he says suddenly, one hand brushing against his throat, almost without his permission. Lupin looks at him, the light catching his eyes for a second, turning them an almost amber colour. He has scars on his face, a broken nose, ragged lines on his hands. His smile, though, is soft, a little rueful.

“I am,” he says.

Later, lying on his mattress in the middle of his bedroom, looking up at the streetlamp through the grimy cracked windows, Sirius trails his fingers down the bruises on his neck. He knows violence, has known it for most of his life, and he knows violent men. Most do it for power, for leverage. Most wait until they know the right kind of violence to use, what will be the best way to take someone down. Lupin, though. Lupin’s violence feels like instinct, easy as breathing. Simple brutality. Sirius was there, in Lupin’s…territory. A threat, to be dealt with. He closes his eyes, shifts a little. With the soft dirty light falling in stripes across his restless limbs, arousal sweet and heavy in his belly, he wonders fleetingly why he isn’t more afraid.

Things fall into a pattern. He works at Abe’s, dodging the gropers, listening to anecdotes and grinning as he witnesses the thousand small rivalries between the different groups of drinkers at the bar. He sees a few of grandfather’s people there. They’re there for pleasure, mainly, not business; they keep their distance. One day, one of them tips his hat to Sirius, another winks. The man who tipped his hat once chopped a fence’s hand off for taking too big a cut. The man who winked was responsible for Sirius seeing his first dead body. Both of them used to buy him ice creams when he was out with his mother. He thinks of the briefcase full of money he has stashed in his room, the three fake passports, the knuckledusters in his pocket, the gun, and the knife strapped to his left ankle. Then, he shakes himself like a dog shaking water off his back, and brings a pint of stout to the languid man in the corner who once sold a cigarette holder to Noël Coward for ten times what it was worth.

He goes back home weary, sometimes at three in the morning, sometimes midday. Most days, Lupin’s there, curled up in an old rug, reading or scribbling in a notebook. He has books stacked all around the flat, and a ridiculous number of rugs and quilts. His room looks more like a nest. It’s all books and bedcovers, a small dark cave. He reads an astonishing range of books, doesn’t discriminate based on subject matter, genre or quality. Sirius comes to treasure that hour before he staggers to bed, that bit of quietness. He lets his mind wander, mellow, without his usual urges to poke and provoke, to take people apart just to see what they do. The second week in, they start to share cigarettes, sat next to each other on the sofa, almost curled up together.

Lupin starts talking more, voice soft as the smoke curls between them. There are things they carefully don’t discuss, vast things, like Sirius’s family, Lupin’s scars and his inability to hold down a decent job despite his obvious brains. They share other secrets, though, and it’s intimate, in a way his noisy and sometimes destructive friendship with James isn’t. James feels more like his brother than his blood relatives. They can argue almost to the point of physical blows one minute, then plan their hypothetical retirement home takeover bid when they’re old and decrepit the next. James whirls in and out of the flat, bringing chaos into every corner. He catches Lupin watching James sometimes, with a soft, almost hopeless look of affection on his face. He understands. It’s _James_. The three of them fit together in a way that feels almost like fate.

That isn’t to say things are easy between him and Lupin all the time. He starts to realise exactly what James meant when he said Lupin had his days. There are days when he disappears without any explanation, days when he comes back injured, limping, trying to hide his pain. There are times when it feels like violence is coiled just under his skin, and Sirius has to make a conscious decision not to provoke him. Most of the time, it works. Most of the time. There are times, though, when Sirius feels the old familiar itch under his skin, the type that led to fighting and fucking back when he lived with his mother, to sneaking out of the house and coming back with come on his jeans and blood on his lips. Those times, he pushes just that little bit too hard, insolence and challenge in every word, every gesture, and Lupin obliges gloriously, all strength and speed, until he’s up against a wall panting for breath, and everything he’s ever reached for feels like it’s just fallen into his lap.

Things shift again the second month in, when Sirius realises precisely how territorial Lupin is. Over his jam. His fucking _jam_. He realises this when Lupin walks in on him having breakfast one day, and crosses the room to the table quicker than Sirius is fully comfortable with. “What is this, Black?” Lupin asks with a mild smile, fingers tight on the jar he’d filched from his cupboard. Sirius knows, he fucking _knows_ what the sensible answer is.

“Looks like jam, Lupin. Feeling especially impaired today?

He grins, sharp, vulpine. Lupin takes a step towards him, then another, presses him back against the worktop, caging him in with a fierce, wiry strength. He reaches up and Sirius flinches a little. He can smell him, and proximity is working fucking _wonders_ for his dick. He’s doomed to a lifetime of terror stiffies now. Goodbye normal sexual responses, and good riddance.

Lupin opens the cupboard to the left of his head, puts the jam in and uses his free hand to grasp the back of Sirius’s neck. “It’s my. Fucking. Jam.”

Sirus can only nod. His fingertips are numb; all the blood’s gone to his dick. Lupin sniffs once, sharply, and smiles slowly. “Good boy,” he murmurs, pats Sirius’s cheek, squeezes the back of his neck until he swears he can feel claws, then saunters out. Sirius waits for the front door to open then shut, then his hands are on his flies, sobbing as he has the fastest and most confusing wank since he got lost in the lingerie section of Selfridges aged twelve and ended up muffling his whimpers with a pair of what he later discovered were voluminous winceyette bloomers. His come hits the table and the floor, dribbles out sticky onto his palm as his knees give out. He almost leaves the kitchen as it is, but he’s pretty sure there would be consequences, so he scrubs like a charlady through the afterglow, on his hands and knees, still panting.

Ten minutes later, Lupin comes back in with a pint of milk, a pack of fags and a skin mag. Sirius looks up from his contemplation of a scorch mark on the table just in time to see his nostrils flare. He smiles, slowly, and Sirius’ spent dick tries to take an interest in proceedings. Lupin grips the back of his neck once more as he puts the milk away, sits a little too close as he lights up a cigarette and hands Sirius one. He is pretty sure at this point that Lupin is fucking with him, but he can’t quite summon the energy to care.

He’d known he was attracted to him, of course he had, but in a distant sort of way. Now, though, it feels like a constant low level thrum. He wants, oh God does he ever want. The next night, he finishes his shift at ten, catches the eye of a man with broad shoulders and hair almost like a mane. This, he knows. He knows the old look and look away, the smile, the eyes flicking to the door and the walk that puts a little more sway into it, out into the alley among the bottles and crates. The man smells of Axe and leather, kisses him with a flattering hunger then spins him around and gives him the sweetest fucking reach around he’s ever had. Sirius comes with his thrown back against the man’s shoulder, eyes closed, and just breathes in the warmth of the spring air as the man frots up against his back, all grunts and the slick slide of his dick against his rucked up jumper, the heat of it shocking on his skin. It doesn’t take long before the man’s biting down on a string of expletives, groaning out into the night air as his come hits Sirius’s back, the wall next to him. He kisses Sirius on the forehead before he lopes off, gesture sweet in the grimy alley, his spunk drying on the bricks.

Sirius has an idea of how this is going to pan out. He doesn’t creep, doesn’t hide. He’s a Black, and Blacks don’t hide. They probably don’t fuck strangers in the alleyways behind gay bars either, but still. He kicks the door, shuts it behind him with enough weight to get it over the lump. Locks it, then starts up the stairs, hands loose by his sides. He had thought of trying to get himself cleaned up a bit, but it would still be obvious what had happened. He gets to the fifth step before the living room light clicks on. He gets to the landing, goes into the kitchen. Puts the kettle on and gets out two mugs, all the time with that odd prickle between his shoulder blades. The pleasant lassitude of half an hour ago is gone, replaced with a restless itch, a thrum under his skin.

When he turns, Lupin is leaning against the door. “Good night?” he asks, voice pleasant, calm.

“Lovely, thanks. Did you get that translation done?”

He keeps his voice absolutely even, betrays nothing with his expression. He turns his back to Lupin again as the kettle boils. He can feel the come drying into flakes on his skin, feel the slight grazes on his face where he’d cooled his burning cheek with the rough brick wall. He grins, because there’s no _way_ Lupin doesn’t know what’s happened. He reaches up to get the sugar and suddenly he’s being spun around, pressed against the wall, struggling to get leverage, to prove something, perhaps to stop being the one who yields to this, who whines and wants. He manages to get to his boot knife, gets a swing in, something that should at least slow him down but his knife connects with nothing but air and the next thing he knows it’s clattered to the floor. He snarls.

Lupin bares his teeth, something flickering in his eyes for a second. “I can smell him on you. The stink of his rut, his spit, the sweat on your skin. Did you beg?”

“Didn’t need to,” Sirius pants, grins as Lupin’s fingers tighten. He’s turned on again, hardening in his come-sticky jeans. Lupin breathes in, once, then smiles slowly.

“Interesting,” he murmurs like he’s conducting an experiment. Sirius says nothing, moves his right leg so the seam of his jeans is pressing just so on his dick. “You enjoy this. Being held still, helpless. More than you thought you would.”

“Let me go.” The words don’t have enough force behind them. He can feel the blood thickening in his veins, lust addling his wits.

“If I wanted to,” Lupin murmurs in that detached tone, hand still a warning pressure on his throat, “there isn’t a thing you could do to stop me. You wouldn’t even cause any lasting damage,” and that does it— he just—

He comes untouched with a whine, cheeks hot with shame and pulse straining against Lupin’s calloused fingertips. Lupin just smiles, mild as ever, like he’s just got an equation to balance, or made a cup of tea that’s just right. Probably isn’t even hard. Sirius lets his eyes slide shut, his come cooling in his trousers, knees trembling. He can’t catch a proper breath, doesn’t even really feel the usual lassitude he gets after a wank. There’s an itch under his skin. “Fuck off,” he bites out, making himself glare at Lupin, pulls the shreds of his confidence together until he can sneer without wanting to roll onto his back and spread his legs. Lupin takes a step back, and he walks past him, makes sure he doesn’t touch him, not even a shoulder to the arm. He can feel his underwear sticking to his dick, the denim chafing at his thighs.

He comes again in the shower, closing his eyes to shut out the pattern of mould on the curtain, one hand touching his neck, fingertips trying to make claws against his skin. It doesn’t help. He’s still restless, still itchy. He’s come more in the space of a few hours than when he was fifteen and discovered alternative uses for his mother’s hand lotion. In the end, he sprawls on his mattress, eyes tracing the cracks on the ceiling, trying not to think too much about patterns and calendars and the way his eyes flashed, just briefly. He drifts off just as the dawn breaks, dozes to the chattering of the birds.

In the morning, Lupin makes him tea, lets him use his jam. It’s not an apology, but it might be something more.

The next week, he exchanges mutual blowjobs with a slender boy who says his name is Jose, but is probably Kevin. Lupin doesn’t even react, just shifts over on the sofa, puts his legs in Sirius’s lap and goes back to reading Hazlitt. Sirius looks at the calendar he’s secured to the crumbling wall with a stolen dart, marks off a few days and huffs out a laugh. The next few weeks, he scribbles notes and observations down on scraps of paper, pushes and provokes for more data. Lupin’s fully aware of what he’s doing, has to be, but he seems to regard Sirius’s experimentation with tolerant amusement, just makes him cups of tea and provides him with thrillingly competent violence. He gets followed twice as he goes home from work one week. He leads them a merry dance down crooked alleys and into worse parts of the city than his tails are used to, then slips back like a shadow, back home. He isn’t sure who the men work for. He’s got a pretty good idea, though. He keeps his knuckledusters in his pocket at all times.

In the end, the first fight he stumbles home from isn’t with a rival gang. It’s not even with a proper criminal, just your common or garden queer bashing skinhead. He’s out putting the bottles in the side alley, sleep-drunk, and this heavy booted pock faced little _cunt_ nearly gets the drop on him. The punch glances off the side of his neck, then Sirius gets the skinhead’s face quickly introduced to the wall and a boot quickly introduced to his stomach. He stays quiet, doesn’t like the sort of talk some people use in a fight. It’s a smokescreen. It’s all satisfyingly brutal, splitting his knuckles on the kid’s face, dodging the frenetic blows and pinwheeling arms, choosing which punches to land, which to glance. He leaves the boy unconscious in the mouth of the alley, finishes his shift with blood on his shirt, endures the sympathetic clucking from the punters and tastes blood every time he licks his lips.

He’s a little slower up the stairs than he’d like, stiffness setting in as he prays that Lupin is, for once, asleep, or better yet, at work. The lights are off in the hall and the living room, and he slumps against the bannister at the top of the stairs, closes his eyes as he lets himself feel the fight for the first time. It may be his soft, whimpered exhale that alerts Lupin; he doesn’t get the chance to ask before he’s pinned to the wall, Lupin’s thigh pressed between his legs and Lupin’s face pressed into the side of his neck, panting harshly.

“Most of the blood isn’t mine,” he starts, bringing up a hand to stroke over the back of Lupin’s head. Lupin just growls, which goes straight to his dick, the rumble of it tugging at something deep in his belly. He tilts his head to the side to give Lupin access to his throat as the cool tip of his nose nudges against his pulse, stubble rasping on the hollow between his collarbones. Lupin makes little near whimpers as he sniffs and nuzzles, caging Sirius in with his limbs. Sirius actually whines when Lupin licks him for the first time, tongue scraping against the salt-blood of his skin.

His hips move without conscious thought, hard against Lupin’s thigh. He closes his eyes as he humps Lupin’s leg like a dog, hands tight in his hair, beyond shame as Lupin bites and growls, hands clawed and bruising on his hips, his shoulders. Their first kiss is after they’ve both come. It’s appealingly backwards, the sticky mess between them as Lupin delicately presses his lips to his in a chaste, slow kiss, no tongues, just mingled breath and a promise. They kiss, lazy, the bone sweet exhaustion making everything slow, suspended. They stumble up to Lupin’s den, curl up together and sleep with their legs tangled up in the bedsheets, the room smelling of old books and tea, warm and musty.

The next morning, Lupin insists on checking Sirius for injuries. Very thoroughly.

One of Tom’s men is in the bar when he goes to work the next day. Sirius waits him out, waits to see what Tom’s willing to chance in Old Man Black’s territory. He has the unnerving feeling that a net is being tightened around him, and the first thing he does when he gets home is check the gun, clean and oil it with quick, efficient movements. He checks his passports and money then, runs through every escape plan he has, this time including Lupin in his arrangements. Lupin knows something is going on, but he doesn’t ask. Sirius strongly suspects he knows at least some of his family history, even the more sordid side of it, but he doesn’t ask and Sirius doesn’t tell. Another mutually agreed-upon deception.

The next time Lupin leaves the house, a little after seven in the evening, Tom’s men tail him. Sirius counts five of them in all, all looking subtly out of place. His first feeling is fury, then fear, then a sort of grim resignation. He goes to the nearest phone box, dials a number he had hoped never to use, then he goes back for his gun, tails the men. He’s damned if Lupin’s getting caught up in all this, just because he was foolish enough to think he could live on his grandfather’s turf and stay out of trouble, to enjoy the protection of his family’s name without contributing to its glory. Without bleeding for it, spilling blood for it.

The sun sets and Sirius still follows, feet soft on flagstones, more a saunter than a stalk. They get to some old warehouses by the river, bricks slimy with moss, crumbling with age. There are more men here, the glint of knives and coshes. Lupin walks in through the vast metal doors, hands in his pockets, as if he were strolling across a town square. If Sirius didn’t know him, know every inch of his skin, he’d miss the slight tension around his shoulders, the slightly animalistic prowl. Sirius also knows, with a bone deep certainty, that Lupin has been aware of his followers since he left the house. Only question is, does he know Sirius is there?

Lupin stops walking once he’s in the middle of the warehouse. Sirius ducks back into the shadows as the thugs fan out between Lupin and the exit. Lupin, though, shrugs out of his jacket, lets it fall to the floor and half turns so the sickly light of the streetlamps throws his scars into stark relief. “Well, lads,” he calls, spreading his arms and turning in a slow circle. “What can I do for you?”

There’s the quiet snick of metal on metal, a whistle of air, then a knife in Lupin’s grip, inches from his sternum. He drops the knife to the floor, clatter echoing among the shipping crates. “I don’t want a fight, believe me,” he says, voice tight, thrumming. A pleading note to it. “And I don’t think I’m interested in what you’re offering.”

“Your flatmate, Black. All we want is information. There are some people who are very worried about him. Very worried indeed. His family miss him very much.”

Sirius recognises the speaker. A ponce called Malfoy, carries a cane with a blade in it. Oddly creative with it, but not so good with words or subtlety. Lupin huffs out a laugh. “I had wondered. He’s one of _those_ Blacks. Little shit. In that case, you’re overstepping your bounds. If there’s one thing I know, it’s territories. You’re on Old Man Black’s patch, and there’s fuck all you can do.”

Lupin’s hands are shaking. His feet are pressed, legs trembling, into the floor, as if he needs to keep them from leaping, pouncing.

“Old Man Black’s patch means nothing to a box shifting lackey like you. No protection. Just us, and a little message, too insignificant to reach the old gentleman.”

Sirius puts his hand on his gun, hackles rising at the growl that’s coming from Lupin. He’s bet everything he has on a phone call, his only backup a gun and his desperation. Physically speaking, his money’s on Lupin in a fight, for reasons he’s not quite ready to examine fully. It’s not the fight, but after, that worries him. He’s never prayed. Never seen the use. He’s kissed the dice, like every other chancer, and he’s hoped plenty, but the getting on his knees type has never struck him as being any use. He’s on the point of testing his theory when a noise at the edge of his hearing grabs his attention. Floating on the wind, he hears sirens, getting closer, and he sags back against the wall, watching as, one by one, Riddle’s men hear them, then there’s the squeal of brakes and doors slamming, scattering the men as blue light reflects off the water and through the grimy windows.

He steps out of the shadows, keeping his distance.

“The police- you should go—I’m not—”

Lupin breaks off, body quivering, a low whine coming out of his throat.

“They’re stolen police cars. Fakes. The Old Man uses them to get around town when there are raids on. They’ll do a sweep round then go. I— are you alright?”

Lupin’s eyes are the colour he’s seen flashes of before, an amber that seems to glow. “You’re a fucking idiot, Black,” he growls. “You should have got out of here ten fucking minutes ago.”

“I know. God, I know. I’ll lock you in, okay? I’ll come let you out tomorrow morning,” he whispers, backing out slowly, almost wanting to stay and watch. His hands shake on the bolts. There’s still a police car out there. The moment he turns and faces it, it drives off slowly. Sirius raises one hand in a salute as it goes. The rest of the night isn’t particularly enjoyable. He leans against the warehouse wall until the sound of tearing flesh and breaking bones and that dreadful heartbroken whine is too much for him, then he walks aimlessly in and out of the Old Man’s territory, mind whirling with plans made on one street, discarded round the corner. It’s no use. He’s going to be the right hand man his grandfather trained him to be. If he’s lucky, Lupin will be allowed to live. Luckier still, they won’t make him a killer.

He finds himself at the front door just as the sun is beginning to rise, picks up some supplies, grabs Lupin’s suspiciously well stocked first aid box from the bathroom cupboard and follows his feet back to the warehouse to see what remains. The first thing he sees when he shoves open the doors is blood, a shining sticky trail of it, and what looks a little bit like bone. There’s broken glass underfoot, and great dents in some of the shipping containers, some clawmarks on them, bare metal shining through the paint. It’s oddly fascinating, trying to retrace Lupin’s steps. Then, there are bloodied footprints, a pile of clothes and any intellectual pleasure is replaced by a deep jerk right in his navel, a thud to his chest as he looks down at the broken man lying on the floor and realises that this is what happens to him _every month_.

“I was hoping for a nurse’s uniform,” Lupin says hoarsely, then pushes himself up to a sitting position. Sirius soaks a flannel with some bottle water, starts wiping the blood off Lupin’s face. “You don’t need to help me; I’ve done this before,” Lupin says, when Sirius manages to stick the flannel up his nose instead of across his mouth.

“That doesn’t mean you have to every time,” he replies, avoiding Lupin’s eyes. He works in silence, then, getting the blood and grime off as best he can. “You’re not…you’re not alone. I want…I—fuck it. I don’t know what I want. Didn’t get much sleep, see?”

Lupin huffs out an odd laugh. “Me neither,” and his voice is desert dry, and whatever else happens, whatever else Sirius loses with that phone call, it’s worth it for this moment, heads bent together in a warehouse with a bloodied floor and dented walls. He gets the bandages and TCP out, the bag of cotton wool swabs, and together they work on getting Lupin cleaned up, his wounds still bleeding sluggishly. There’s silence for a while, not an uncomfortable one. Neither of them are prone to discussing this thing between them, the cycles of violence and tenderness, shared cigarettes and books and fucks that feel more like fights. There are so many things unspoken; it’s not certain where they’d even begin in a discussion of how they fit together. They are what they are.

“How long have you…” he begins, when he can’t ignore this any longer. Lupin tilts his head to the side, raises his eyebrows. “I mean, you’re all…” he shrugs, tails off.

Lupin looks up at him, TCP bottle in hand. “Say it,” he bites out, and Sirius is pinned by his eyes, a butterfly on a card, and he wants to roll over, to show his belly, bare his throat; he wants more than he is comfortable with. “Say it,” Lupin repeats. “What am I?”

Even in the quieter recesses of his mind, he’s avoided naming him. He stares at the floor, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. The hand around his neck, when it comes, is almost welcome. “You’re a werewolf,” he chokes out, concrete unyielding at his back. “And in my defence, the reason I‘ve been fucking coy about it is that werewolves don’t bloody exist.”

Lupin grins down at him, opening up his split lip again. Blood pools at the side of his mouth. “Good boy,” he says, pats him on the cheek and releases him, goes back to cleaning the cuts and grazes that add to the scars mapping out each full moon. “How long’ve you known?”

“Since last night,” he tries, almost laughs at the deeply unimpressed look Lupin shoots him. “Second month in, I knew there was a pattern. I just didn’t…fuck, Lupin, you’re something from a story book.”

“A monster. I put you in danger. Hurt you. I think we should—”

“No, no, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to act like you’re the only one to blame for all this. That’s absolute bollocks. I—fuck, Lupin, do you know who I am? Do you—”

He almost tells Lupin, then, tells him exactly what that phone call will mean for him. He stops himself, keeps his hands gentle as he wraps Lupin’s knuckles. “I used your anger. I used that danger. I’m— I’m wired wrong; you know how your bouts of casual violence make me. I want you, all of you. The bit that talks about eighteenth century taxation systems, and the bit that comes within a hairsbreadth of tearing out my throat, because I know you never will. I’ve seen it. My own _family_ would knife me through the ribs if they thought it was necessary, and you, you nearly tore yourself apart to stop yourself from harming a hair on my head.”

Lupin says nothing. Sirius can feel him gathering himself, pulling together his mental and physical reserves, holding together his tattered edges as he pulls on his shredded jeans, slips on his shoes. Sirius hands him the clean t shirt he’d grabbed, and they clean up what they can of the blood with his old ripped clothes. The walk home is silent. As soon as they get in, Sirius tugs him up to his bedroom, his den full of books and nest of blankets, and despite the summer heat, burrows deep with him, wraps himself around Lupin and refuses to let him go, beyond words, beyond anything but the feeling of his skin and the need to stop him from ever leaving. It takes Lupin physically lifting him and bundling them both into the shower, still dressed, to pull him out of his paralysis.

He drops to his knees, fingers shaking on the fly of Lupin’s jeans, drags them down to his ankles and shoulders into the space between Lupin’s legs, rests his head on Lupin’s thigh. He’s healing already. He scars, but heals quickly. Sirius traces his finger down a thick scar that twists down to Lupin’s knee, follows it down with his tongue. He wants to see all his marks, every old wound, everything he’s hidden. He wants to climb inside Lupin’s skin, learn all his pain, blood, violence, every dark part of him. He can see Lupin hardening, can smell the musk of him, damp heat and maleness. He rubs his nose in his pubic hair, the crinkling spring of it tickling his lips, licks at the wrinkled skin of his balls, hanging hot and heavy. Lupin indulges him, lets him explore the dark secret parts of him with lips, tongue and teeth. He’s a warm, smooth hardness in his mouth, pressing at his soft palate, and Sirius loses himself in the rhythm of it, the back and forth, the stretch of his lips around his dick, the taste of precome. He feels utterly at peace as Lupin grips his hair, fucks into his mouth with just the right amount of force. It seems to go on forever before his hips stutter and he comes, hot and almost bitter at the back of Sirius’s throat, on his tongue as he nearly chokes.

Lupin pulls him up, presses against him and kisses him, brings him off with a hand hot on his dick, the tip of his finger just circling round his arsehole. He comes with his teeth scraping against Lupin’s collarbone, eyes closed as he whines and gasps, as Lupin strokes him through it to the point of discomfort, keeps going until he’s writhing and begging, beyond sensitivity to pain. Sirius is still fully clothed, sopping wet and he’s about ready to offer his soul for relief but Lupin doesn’t stop, doesn’t stop until he’s hard again, then he strips them both, clothes and bandages a pile on the floor of the shower. There’s a tub of Vaseline by the sink, and Lupin props him boneless against the tiles as he reaches out and grabs it, scoops it out and smears it on his dick, then presses a finger into Sirius with a smooth slide and a sweet twist. One finger becomes two before he’s really adjusted to it, and he moves into the ache, the burn that promises that it’ll be good soon. He’s so hard, so desperate, and Lupin keeps stroking him, water sliding enough that it isn’t too painful. He twists his other hand, fingers just brushing against his sweet spot, and all Sirius can do is feel, accept all of this as his body twitches and jerks this way and that. He’s on the point of begging when Lupin presses into him, puts his mouth to the back of his neck and breathes against his skin as he slowly pushes in, relentless for all that he’s restrained.

When he’s fully in, he caresses down Sirius’s sides, gentling him with little touches, almost crooning to him. Sirius reaches back blindly, pulls him so they can nearly kiss over his shoulder, twisting until their lips touch. His feet squelch on their discarded clothes as he arches his back so Lupin can move properly, fucking into him with a smooth motion, stroking his dick in counterpoint to his thrusts as Sirius gasps, water trickling into his mouth, down his face. They stay like that, suspended for what feels like hours, the repetitive ebb and flow of Lupin’s movements sending him drifting off, untethered. He slips into orgasm between one breath and the next, back arching into it, sobbing into the steam filled room, then he slumps, Lupin supporting his full weight, unable to do anything but breathe as Lupin’s movements speed up, become a frantic rutting, teeth sharp as he bites down on Sirius’s shoulder, pinning him in place as he comes, partly inside him, then pulls out, coming on his arse, up his back, on his trembling legs. Marking him. He’s drawn blood, and Sirius is dimly aware that he’s crying a little, soul stripped bare, all his reserves used up. After, Lupin makes him a cup of tea. At some point, they might start using words when they think they need to apologise.

It’s a week before Old Man Black comes. It’s seven days of bar work, kickabouts with James, and hours on Lupin’s bed fucking rather than talking about the approaching storm. If Sirius had thought Lupin was…odd in bed before, now Sirius knows what he is, he is absolutely bizarre. There is no part of Sirius he won’t lick, making these chuffing, whining noises as he pins Sirius down and just _takes_ , and Sirius gives, and gives, in bitten off cries and half laughs, half moans. Lupin opens him up with patient fingers as Sirius writhes, claws at Lupin’s shoulders, kisses him breathless and arches off the mattress, moves as much as Lupin will let him. He humps his leg, calls him his beautiful dirty boy, makes him come from just his tongue in his arse, whispers such filth into his ears that he thinks he will never be able to hear him speak again without getting hard.

With the ebb and flow of the moon, this will all change. There may even be rose petals on the bed one day.

Lupin’s at Abe’s, waiting for him to finish his shift when the men in sharp pinstripe suits walk in. Sirius is in the middle of explaining exactly why Hemingway beats Fitzgerald any day of the week when the pub falls silent. His grandfather is exactly how he remembers him, a slender, dapper man, with dark eyes and white hair, an immaculate suit and a cane he doesn’t really need in his hand. Sirius puts down the glass he’s wiping, dries his hands on the towel, stops slouching. He can feel himself withdrawing from Lupin, from this life he’s carved out for himself. The noise in the pub restarts as the Old Man nods to some of his old acquaintances and older enemies. “Grandfather. What a pleasant surprise,” he says as he comes out from behind the bar, embraces him and kisses him on both cheeks. His grandfather chuckles.

“Don’t fleece me, boy. It’s neither of those things, but you said it very prettily. Your mother may have the worst taste in husbands, but she knew how to drill manners into you. Even if she’s burnt every picture of you in the house, and all your belongings that Reggie couldn’t salvage. You did a proper number on her, didn’t you, my lad? Oh, now, don’t get like that. You knew what you were doing, even if this little tantrum lasted for longer than we expected it to.”

Sirius bites his lip. He’s acutely aware that Lupin can hear every word as he ruthlessly tamps down his anger. The Old Man doesn’t miss his flare of temper, though. If Lupin’s a wolf, he’s a snake, a more calculated brutality. Sirius is prey. Or, not quite prey. This trap is all his own making.

“But it’s time to grow up, now. You’ve finished your education, got a little polish. You’ve seen a bit of life, enough to know nothing comes for free. You forced my hand against Tom, my boy, and your little squabble’s spilling over into my other interests.”

He would have come up against Tom anyway. He hates him. Tom’s new money, no class. Greedy, more creatively violent than the Old Man likes. Too many ties to skinheads, neo Nazis. They’ll tear each other apart in the next few years.

“You need some new suits, my boy. Can’t have you showing me up like this, not now you’re back in the fold. Go to my tailor, he’ll know what to do. My treat,” he says and pats Sirius’s cheek, every inch the indulgent grandfather.

“Yes, sir, thank you,” Sirius says, his voice pitched low and soft. He doesn’t trust himself to say any more. Old Man Black leaves, chatter following in his wake. Sirius spends the rest of the shift accepting hand-wringing apologies from every single punter who ever tried to chat him up. Lupin just watches him, doesn’t look away for a second. He keeps his back straight, his pride stopping him from just falling into Lupin’s arms and trusting his strength and ferocity to keep them safe.

They don’t speak on the way back. Sirius collapses on the sofa, stares at the wall as Lupin makes the tea. His hands are shaking. His hands are shaking, and at some point this summer he’s going to kill someone, or interrogate someone, or bribe, extort, blackmail—

He’s only dimly aware of Lupin’s arms around him, pulling him back so they’re lying together as he tries to remember how to breathe. “That phone call,” Lupin says at last. “It was to him, wasn’t it. You…you’d been staying out of it.”

“Don’t,” Sirius starts, stops.

“You idiot. Fuck, you _arse_. You brave, brave boy.”

Sirius chokes out a laugh that’s more a sob. They sit up and drink their tea, shoulders touching. Fine tremors keep running through him, shaking the mug he has a death grip on. He washes the cups mechanically, puts them on the drying rack. Stares at them, mind blank. Lupin touches his shoulder gently, brings him back to the present. “I can’t let you do this,” he says, voice utterly sure.

“I have to. It’ll keep you safe, for a bit, if I toe the line, give you a chance to get yourself out, start afresh.”

“Safe! I don’t care about safe. We can leave, both leave. Go and have an adventure. Spend a few years wandering. Just don’t—don’t become the creature he wants. You’re too young for that. We can run, be as cowardly as we like so long as we both live.”

“Blacks don’t run.”

“No. They kneecap people, they murder, corrupt people in public office, run protection rackets, smuggle drugs, launder money through a variety of businesses—”

And this time, it’s Sirius’s hand on Lupin’s throat, and damn if he doesn’t just let him. “Fuck you,” he snarls, angry in a hopeless sort of way, fingers flexing round Lupin’s neck. He kicks his legs apart, wants to climb into his skin, show him this rage, desire, despair that’s clenching at his heart. He lets go, drops his forehead onto Lupin’s shoulder, breathes in his scent as everything crumbles. “You’re worth it. I knew what would happen when I asked him for help but you’re worth it. I—you’ve never killed anyone. You’ve torn yourself to pieces to stop yourself from harming a hair on anyone’s head, because once you’ve killed someone, it leaves a mark on you. It takes a piece of your soul every time, and I would do anything, anything, to keep you from that. There’s no hope for me, but you, you’ve got a chance.”

“I haven’t had a chance since I was bitten in the woods when I was four. I haven’t been to school, don’t really exist on paper, and I’ll never get a steady job. I’ve been squatting here since I was fifteen and have no idea how the electricity and gas haven’t been cut off yet, because I’m sure as fuck not paying for them. I don’t even have a bank account, just money under my mattress.”

“I keep it in a briefcase,” Sirius murmurs, momentarily diverted. “God, we’re a mess. We’re supposed to be adults.”

He can feel Lupin’s laughter through his skin. “Please. Please run away with me. I know you; you’ve got at least three escape plans in place.”

“You do. You know me. _You know me_ ,” he says, kisses Lupin till he’s breathless, exhilarated beyond belief. To be known, oh, such a thing is far better than being loved. “James is going to kill us.”

“We’ll send him postcards. Invite him to stay on his breaks. Someone needs to check on the house once in a while, anyway.”

“Won’t people try and move in?”

Lupin looks sheepish, doesn’t speak for a few moments. Sirius waits him out. “Well…see, the thing is, everyone thinks the house is haunted. No one dares set foot in it. James only moved in because he’s an oblivious idiot who doesn’t listen to rumours. You…you moved in because you’ve got no concept of your own safety and an overreliance on knuckledusters. I lived on my own before that.”

Sirius kisses him again, because there’s no other way he can say ‘you poor sod’. “We’ll have to get James to go there and howl once in a while. Just to preserve the illusion until we get back.”

“You think we’re coming back?”

“Matter of time. Someone has to keep James out of trouble.”

Sirius leaves on a close, humid summer night, sweating in the only suit he owns, with a briefcase full of money, three forged passports, a set of knuckledusters, a gun and a werewolf. He’s nineteen, and everything’s starting again. He looks back, and it’s a promise.


End file.
